Wednesday, October 29, 2014

It’s time for an update on our mission so far. Our initial adjustment is pretty well done
and we are getting into the life here quite comfortably. The weather is still rather nice. It occasionally rains, the sky is often
overcast and the temperature isn’t too hot,.. yet. We understand that will change with the dry
season. They tell us that it will be
very warm around Christmas and January.
We’ll let you know when that happens.
We probably won’t have a white Christmas, in more ways than one J

We have been healthy, except for one week when we, along with others
here, had a stomach virus of some sort.
It wasn’t too bad, and we got over it quickly. We can’t really slow down much, because of
the numbers of missionaries that need to be trained and into the mission field
on time. We are in the middle of the
largest number of missionaries we have had here at one time. We have over 90 missionaries. Their intake day was wild with missionaries
coming on and off all day and night.
But…we survived and they are all being trained now. Some are here for
less than 2 weeks, while those learning a language are here for 6 weeks.

Here are some interesting stats about MTCs around the world.

September departure preparation:
As the missionaries come to the end of their stay with us,
they hold a going away party during their evening snack time. We try to go down to say our goodbyes. It is a casual but fun evening and includes a
lot of hugging and singing. This group
includes missionaries from all over Africa, France and the United States. But, we are all united in the family of the
Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Elder Malmrose and a few of his closest friends. They are very shy, as you can see.

If we start to take a picture of a few of the missionaries,
all of a sudden there are dozens more joining in. Here is President Robison drowning in a sea
of love.

These are pictures of a few of our “Elders” at the
farewell just before they leave the next day or so.

September 9 Departure.

This is the day their vans pulled out to take them to their mission fields all over Africa. Goodbye until we meet again.

September 24 temple trip:
Preparation for a clean head before coming to the temple.

At the temple.

One of the joys of our mission is being able to go with
these young folks to the temple in Accra.
This missionary was able to do some of the work for his family and he
asked us to be proxy for his parents, so that he could be sealed to them. After that, we called him “son”.

Now and again, we have to remind our friends, to get their
long hair cut.

Gerald found a big bug on our office window:

The bug is not as beautiful as our flowers.

September 27 - Visit to Doctor

Our mission doctor Dr. Hill and his wife, come to the MTC
regularly. They give several lectures on
health issues to encourage the missionaries to take good care of
themselves. These are some of the slides
they show when they encourage them to take their meds. They also give the immunizations that are
required here. They don’t much like to
get their “shots”, but they all manage to get through it. One of my main responsibilities is to set up
those shot clinics ahead of time, so that it can be taken care of efficiently.

Elder Chibuisi eyelid injury: On one occasion, after the doctor was done with his visit
and had left the building, this Elder was injured playing “football”. Fortunately, the doctor and his wife were
only a few minutes from the MTC and he could come back and get the patient and
take him back to his office, an hour away.
He was able to stitch up the cut and it turned out very well, much
better than if we had to take him to a local hospital, I would guess. There are no coincidences.

September 29 Departure.
Preparing to “graduate” into the mission field. The three
sisters in the front are from Madagascar and are super sweet gals.

They are all happy to be moving on and going to work for the
Lord. What great experiences lie ahead for these young folks.